Posted by baseball55 on July 9, 2016, at 20:44:07
In reply to CBT anyone?, posted by SLS on July 9, 2016, at 15:51:54
I see a therapist who does DBT/CBT. Doing dynamic therapy helped me a lot at the beginning, because I had some serious issues and traumas to work through. But, as my T then said, understanding everything doesn't necessarily help with depression and SI. You need to learn coping skills. He wanted me to find someone who did DBT/CBT and, fortunately, I found someone really good.
I think this type of therapy is as, if not more, helpful than meds (though I still take meds). I still felt depressed a lot and had a lot of issues with suicidality, but I learned to manage my own reactions to it - all the negative self talk (this will never get better, etc.) - that just exacerbated the feelings. DBT focuses more on coping skills - learning to be mindful and in the moment, to "do the opposite" (like get up and shower when you don't want to get out of bed) whenever possible.
My DBT/CBT therapist sees herself as kind of a coach. When I feel out of control and suicidal, I can call her and she will talk me through it and suggest things I might do to change my emotional state. But I also will take 15mg of abilfy for a week or two to help pull me out of these deep dips. It also helped me a lot for her to tell me that I should think of severe depression episodes as being on a plateau rather than hitting a wall. If all I could do was lie in bed, then that was all I could do and I should do that and not panic about it and beat up on myself and tell myself this is unbearable, etc.
The combination of CBT/DBT and meds is supposed to be the most effective treatment for anxiety and depression and beats out all others in empirical studies - meds alone, therapy alone. But it takes willingness to do it. You have to acknowledge that a mood disorder, while having biological roots, is exacerbated by these loops of negative thoughts, feeling worse, more negative thoughts and so on. I am also a big booster of DBT, though it is hard to find people with training in this. DBT is most effective in dealing with self-destructive behaviors - suicidality, self-harm. Since my depression involved a lot of SI and two attempts, the combination of DBT/CBT worked best for me.
I will add that studies show CBT to be the most effective treatment for anxiety disorders including OCD, phobias and panic attacks.
> Is CBT effective for anything?
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> All comments welcome.
>
>
> - Scott
poster:baseball55
thread:1090316
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20150512/msgs/1090320.html